


Orenda

by Verisimilitude (Wolfy_Tales)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Role Reversal, Gen, Jedi!Ben, Sith!Rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:54:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5660410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfy_Tales/pseuds/Verisimilitude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's younger than him, with eyes that burn gold with red underneath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orenda

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars

 

 

o•ren•da  
_Pronunciation:_ (ô-ren'd _u_ , ō-ren'-)  
— _n._  
  
_1\. An omnipresent force believed by the Iroquois Indians to be present, in varying degrees, in all objects or persons. It empowers people to change the world in a positive, loving way. It is the energy that affects change in One's own life._

 

 

 

 

 

She was younger than him, the girl with the glowing red saber and gold eyes.

Her hair flew loose, seemingly uncared for as it moved in waves around her face. Her eyes were painful to look at, akin to staring into an open wound. Of seeing the fracturing of white bone on the outside of a friend's limb.

She was death and power, and Ben felt himself go weak and almost collapse to his knees.

.

"Her name is Rey," Luke told him, as they sit in the Millennium Falcon and escape.

Away from Jakku. Away from saving Poe, BB-8 and their newly turned friend. Away from that girl with the glowing eyes and feral grin. Her face had been so empty until they'd fallen on Ben. Then she'd shown her teeth like a weapon.

"She said her name was Ren," Ben said weakly.

Master Luke was silent before nodding, and saying: "That is only _her_ truth."

.

He saw her next only days later, coming to destroy one of the only havens Ben had ever known. He remembered Maz's hideaway always with fondness. No matter his age, during every visit Ben's eyes strayed in all directions to try and understand.

Ben ran, first to help his Father and Chewie, but then he felt a pull. A pull to go into the forest, alone, with his lightsaber glowing green to blend in with the trees.

He felt himself burn when he saw her. Burn like the planets no longer in the sky.

.

Even with her lips upturned in a smile, her eyes held nothing. Empty despite the glowing, silent and cold like her footsteps closer to him. Her face was the perfect mask.

Ben thought of how Finn described her with wide eyes and stuttered words. How Poe looked fearful for the first time in his reckless life while describing how she'd attacked his head for information. He thought to how Luke had watched her on Jakku and turned away, pain on his usually passive face.

.

Ben awoke in a metal chair, and looked to see Ren watching him. She stood, hair brushing back over her shoulders. Now with no wind or gunfire it was a mane. Wild and tangled with curls.

("Eat the crusts, Ben," Leia laughed, "Else you won't get curly hair!")

Her eyes sharpened, the pathetic attempt at a smile forgotten as it fell in a flash. Fell nearly as fast as Ben had to her influence over him in the forest.

.

"You're afraid of your never escaping shadows. You're parents. Master Luke's."

Her hand reached closer; Ben's body arched further. He bit his tongue so he didn't cry out.

"Of the dark thoughts that manifest in your mind. When you look up at the stars, and wonder if you'll ever find a place of your own. Or if you'll drown in an ocean of the insurmountable past."

.

There was pain, then the feeling of acceptance. And then it was as if a damn had been let loose in his mind: he felt the coolness of the force wash away the hurt and the girl.

Ren took a staggering step back.

"You're afraid," Ben panted, chest tight but eyes finally open. "Afraid no one will every remember you."

.

Ben's face felt like it might split in happiness when he saw Han and Luke appear around the corner. He hid his almost-tears in Chewie's fur, another secret for the wookie to protect. Finn reached forward, grasping him around his arm and giving a blinding smile.

But there was no time to celebrate. Because they were running to the oscillator, bags and minds heavy with explosives and last-ditch hope.

Ben felt her in the back of his awareness. Angry and every alone.

.

Luke had never seemed tall to Ben. At the tender age of thirteen he'd shot up like a weed; he'd been looking down at his Master for sixteen years.

But now Luke seemed tall as he stood before Rey. Just a little slip of a girl, holding out her hand as if begging for food and not Luke's history.

Suddenly Ben understood why she'd captured him, tortured him. She'd used him as bait, knowing Luke would save him. To protect his nephew, his student, his fellow Jedi Master.

Luke's hand passed over his lightsaber, Ren's face calmed at the action- and then Luke's energy closed as he was killed in blue. He fell.

.

Ben screamed, but couldn't hear it. He only felt his throat go rough, and then numb. His eyes blinked away tears very different from the ones he'd shed just moments before.

Ren looked up to him, face ethereal and beautiful in the blue light.

Ben felt a swelling in his chest – advice to hold his energy back, advice to turn and take a victory when it was offered.

He held out his hand, and took away the gift Luke had freely given.

.

Ren perused him, furious at his belief that he could take what was owed to her.

Ben ran headlong into the world of white. He needed to buy time for Han and Chewie to set up the explosives. For them to run to the Falcon, to help the X-wings falling from the sky.

Her red saber fired to a start behind her, the blade perfect and deadly. Ben held off using his own green, and instead ignited the blue.

.

She fought without abandon, even with the shot Chewie had managed to get into her side. Ben had wondered on that: why not shoot her in the heart?

Why had Luke let her go? What had become of this girl everyone seemed to know except him?

Ren slashed his arm; he branded her shoulder. He left another wound at her neck, cutting her mane to create the noxious smell of burnt hair.

.

The snow melted on her face, and Ben found surprise in that. He expected her to be inhumane in more than just characteristics. Why should warm blood flow through her veins when her eyes were dead.

He thought to the interrogation room, of the yawning loneliness in her mind. Of the helpless feeling of falling down a well with no one to help. Fingernails snapping and hands bleeding in mad attempts to reach the light. Screaming, screaming, _screaming_ in the darkness.

.

He hit her across the face, branding her as a failure.

Ben reached forward with the force, brushed against her mind in her weakened state. It opened up to him without problem.

Endless sand, endless heat, endless wonderment at what she was doing here. Master Luke had left her, training incomplete and with no true perspectives. Just to think, and to concentrate on who she wanted to become.

She didn't want to be a weak girl anymore.

If the light wouldn't come to her, she'd welcome the dark.

.

Ren – _Rey_ yelled out, but it was more of a whimper. Her voice was panicked, the first true emotion Ben had seen her express.

She looked up to him as Ben went through further memories. Promises of power, promises of immortality, promises of people remembering her and _knowing her name._

Her eyes were bright with true color. Green with hints of brown, like an early spring day where the mud was rich and the new leaves eager. They were alive.

Ben ran, and left her bleeding in the snow. A broken child out of her season.

 

 

 

FIN

 

 

 


End file.
